Reforestation of Lodgepole Pine in the Alberta Foothills | Booklet

foreground grasses, behind that are some juvenile pine trees. behind that is a large cutblock of seedlings with a remnant patch of old pine trees on a hill

The Alberta foothills forest region is an ecosystem of major provincial,national and international importance. It stores carbon, supplies water to three Canadian provinces and the Northwest Territories, and supports timber production, a rich wildlife, and a variety of recreational opportunities. The dominant and characteristic tree species is lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud. var. latifolia Engelm.). Regeneration of pine after fire, logging and other disturbances is essential in order to sustain the ecosystem and all it provides.

Understanding the regeneration process, and how it responds to reforestation practices, is therefore key to managing the forest on a sustainable basis, which is required by law on public lands in Alberta. Lodgepole pine has been naturally regenerating after forest fires in Alberta for millennia, and the process by which it does so is generally well understood. But less information was available until recently on how stands develop following logging.

Recognizing that more and better information was required, in the year 2000 a consortium of 10 forest management agreement holders, with participation and advice from the Alberta government, formed the Foothills Growth and Yield Association, which subsequently became the Foothills Pine Project of the Forest Growth Organization of Western Canada. Since commencement of the Project, unprecedented largescale infestation by mountain pine beetle raised questions about how stands could be restored following attack, which led to additional research being undertaken.

This booklet describes the project methodology, and what we have learned about how lodgepole pine responds to the reforestation practices of harvesting, site preparation, planting, herbicide application, and pre-commercial thinning.

Download the booklet here

Learn about the project with an online storymap

Related Resources

In the Spring of 2021, FGrOW hosted a series of webinars including two related to this project.

Linking Silviculture to Growth and Yield in Alberta: A new version of the Foothills Reforestation Interactive Planning System (FRIPSY2021)

Presented by Dick Dempster

How do we know what combinations of reforestation practices will best meet forest management objectives?  FRIPSY 2021 (a new version of the Foothills Reforestation Interactive Planning System) helps answer this question by quantitatively linking reforestation treatments (site preparation, planting, tending and pre-commercial thinning) in the Foothills natural region of Alberta to regeneration performance and long-term growth and yield. The development, features and rollout of the system will be described, along with a discussion of the potential role and limitations of such tools in forest management.


What are the benefits of site preparation, planting, weeding, and pre-commercial thinning on Lodgepole Pine performance in the Foothills of Alberta?

Presented by Dick Dempster

The Foothills Growth and Yield Association (FGYA) established the Regenerated Lodgepole Pine (RLP) trial in 2000 to monitor, under experimentally controlled conditions, the effects of planting, tending, and pre-commercial thinning on the development of lodgepole pine stands following harvesting and planting in the Alberta foothills. The FGYA became FGrOW’s Foothills Pine Project in 2015, which continued and expanded upon the initial trial. All RLP plots were measured repeatedly during the first 18 years, with sub-sampling of seedlings and saplings facilitating detailed analysis and modelling over the entire regeneration phase. The RLP trial was augmented by measurement of a complementary trial to examine the effects of harvesting and site preparation methods 17 years after harvest. The project also investigated regeneration over a ten-year period following Mountain Pine Beetle disturbance on permanent sample plots in fire-origin stands. Now that the RLP trial has entered the growth phase and regeneration modelling has been completed, the measurement interval and sampling procedures are being adjusted to allow cost-effective monitoring throughout the remainder of the rotation.

The seminar will describe the design and latest results of these studies, discuss their implications for forest management, and make recommendations for ongoing monitoring of treatment effects.